Shania Twain recalls traumatic childhood 'We got smacked around a lot'

Shania Twain has opened up about the domestic violence she experienced growing up, recalling a childhood marked by fear, physical abuse and instability.

Speaking on the Wild Card with Rachel Martin podcast, the country music icon reflected on life with her mother, Sharon, and stepfather, Jerry, describing a household where arguments frequently turned violent.

Twain said her parents loved each other but often fought, and the violence sometimes extended to her and her sisters, Jill and Carrie Ann.

"If I was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, definitely," she said. "Both my parents were pretty harsh physically. We definitely got smacked around a lot, and kicked around sometimes, literally kicked around."

The Grammy-winning singer recalled witnessing intense confrontations between her parents, saying her mother often suffered visible injuries.

"My mom would lose clumps of hair. She was bruised often in the face," Twain said, adding that the violent episodes were "very traumatic."

"Our house would shake. Those walls would shake. It gets loud and scary, like a really bad thunderstorm."

Twain also revealed that her mother repeatedly tried to leave the relationship, but the family always ended up returning.

"My mother did often try to leave. We did leave, but he'd always find us, or she'd always give in and go back," she said. "It was a cycle."

The singer has previously addressed her difficult upbringing in her 2011 memoir From This Moment On, where she detailed years of emotional and physical abuse. In the book, she also recalled intervening during one violent incident, striking her stepfather with a chair before he punched her in the jaw.

Sharon and Jerry later died in a car accident in 1987.